Why own a car when you can borrow one?

I do hope you enjoyed that new Ferrari 612 you bought a year ago. After all, it’s cost you more than £1,000 a week. That’s not what it cost to run, it’s what it cost in depreciation before you filled up, taxed and insured the beast. Still, it could have been worse — had you plumped for the Maybach 62, you would have lost £128,899 before you switched on the ignition.

We moan like mad about the cost of petrol, because we can see it. In fact, thanks to the collapse in the oil price, a litre costs much the same today as it did three years ago, despite rises in duty. We may complain that our insurance premiums are subsidising all those lunatic drivers who just wing it, but the figures above, compiled by Parker’s, a firm of car-buying advisers, reveal that the biggest cost of that rotting metal outside your house is, well, the rotting metal itself.